drunken_master
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 Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 10:47 pm Post subject: FIFA deny plans to move 2010 WC |
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World football governing body, FIFA, has dismissed reports that it has a contingency plan to move the 2010 Soccer World Cup to another country if South Africa is unable to host the event.
This comes after a Sunday newspaper reported that South Africa's chances of hosting the World Cup were getting slimmer by the day and that there were "whispers in the corridors of soccer power" that the event could be moved to Australia.
"That's absolutely untrue, 100 per cent. There's no contingency plan at all. Someone's made that up," Michael Palmer, from FIFA's South African office, told The Star.
He added: "The President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, has spent years ensuring the event goes to Africa, FIFA has an office and employees in South Africa and there have been over 60 South Africans on FIFA observer programmes at Germany 2006. Only to then take the event somewhere else?
"We absolutely, categorically deny it, we won't even discuss it. It just genuinely is not true."
Meanwhile, 2010 LOC Chief Executive Officer Danny Jordaan has described claims that South Africa could lose the 2010 Soccer World Cup as "laughable" and "absolute nonsense".
"What has changed since we won (the bid) to hold the World Cup? Why will we suddenly now lose it?
"We must be serious about how we present our country to the outside world. We are not serious," Jordaan told SAPA.
Jordaan also added that he was "not interested" in stories of that nature.
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